Masterclass - Baremboim explores Beethoven wth Lang Lang

[MuggedByReality]

   
       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yslruo1WgEY
       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42BItJ-vpSA&feature=related
       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM_rW7SSV8g&feature=related
       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb473D3bXg8&feature=related
       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcI8m-P_0HM&feature=related

[TrueTears]

haha seen this ages ago lang lang may overexaggerate, but he has skillz

[ninwa]

Isn't this very old? I remember watching it years ago.

Also, I've always wondered why so many top pianists (and composers) are Jewish.

[MuggedByReality]

 My bad, I saw it a few months ago, assumed it was recent

   
  ninwa, I suppose, somewhere along the line, music came to be one of several fields in which Jews had/have a culture of excelling.
 
   sorry, not the most insightful answer

[Cianyx]

Jews tend to perform significantly better in intelligence tests, a lot higher than the population average. Creativity probably plays a large factor in that as well

[ninwa]

True, you need intelligence to truly be an outstanding musician

[MuggedByReality]

   What sort of intelligence? And how outstanding?

[ninwa]

I think it takes a special sort of intelligence (emotional, perhaps?) to interpret a bunch of dots and lines on a page into the music the composer intended.

It also takes a fair bit of intelligence to have the manual dexterity required to be 'outstanding', as well as the ability to focus on often four different things at once (2 hands, 2 feet) and do it well.

By 'outstanding' I'm thinking of people like Ashkenazy, Argerich, the Rubinsteins, Horowitz.
(lol, the first 4 names I think of and 3 of them are Jewish)

[MuggedByReality]

 

    first names which come to my mind:

   Horovitz, Berezovsky Brendel, Helfgott, Arrau, Biret, Thibaudet, Andsenes, Demidenko

     
   Not that I'm by any means a conoisseur, just those are the ones I'm most familiar with, the last one because he lives just near my Dad. (And I saw David Helfgott in Bendigo.)

[ninwa]

!!! that's pretty cool.

(I'm guessing you don't mean the Bendigo in Victoria )

[Cianyx]

According to Backman or whatever his name is, they appear to score exceptionally well on verbal and mathematical aspects in IQ tests. If you think about it, it translates really well into music. Verbal reasoning helps you comprehend and manipulate vast concepts while mathematics plays a large role in time signatures etc.

Arrau, Horowitz and Rubinstein are Jewish (Actually, I should have been able to guess the latter)? Never knew that. I think one which comes to mind immediately is Mahler. But what do I know about classical

Finesse requires larger areas of your brain compared to movement of larger anatomical features, so perhaps this is the key to dexterity? (Meh, probably doesn't hold any water but w/e)

[ninwa]

mathematics plays a large role in time signatures etc.

Chicken/egg... I always thought the research showed that studying music made you better at maths. But I guess being good at maths makes studying music easier?

Arrau, Horowitz and Rubinstein are Jewish (Actually, I should have been able to guess the latter)? Never knew that. I think one which comes to mind immediately is Mahler. But what do I know about classical

I didn't know about Arrau either.
Also Mendelssohn, Gershwin. More Jewish pianists than composers though

Finesse requires larger areas of your brain compared to movement of larger anatomical features, so perhaps this is the key to dexterity? (Meh, probably doesn't hold any water but w/e)

That makes sense

[MuggedByReality]

!!! that's pretty cool.

(I'm guessing you don't mean the Bendigo in Victoria )

  7 of my 8 years in Australia were spent in the Bendigo in Victoria



    Incidentally, Boris Beresovsky, whom I know from this tour-de-force rendition of Balakirev's Islamey, shares his name with the 2nd most famous Russian oligarch to have settled in England

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5raMK4Z9co